


A Little Night Music

by okapi



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Ficlet Collection, Inspired by Music, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2020-09-28 12:23:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 16,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20425922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okapi/pseuds/okapi
Summary: Sherlock Holmes (ACD) ficlet collection. All inspired by pieces of music callednocturnesby different composers. All chapters stand alone. Check the chapter summary for ratings and warnings.15.Entering the room quietly.Watson waxes poetic about Holmes entering and exiting the room. Gen. Inspired by a heavy metal version of Chopin's no. 20 in C sharp minor.





	1. I was happy indeed. [Bizet's Nocturne from Carmen]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Title:** I was happy indeed  
**Fandom:** Sherlock Holmes (ACD)  
**Pairing:** Holmes/Watson  
**Rating:** Gen  
**Length:** 1100  
**Prompt:** DW Shortfics comm: 031. I was happy indeed.  
**Notes:** A bit angsty with a happy, fluffy ending. Pre-Reichenbach, Hiatus, and post-Reichenbach. Inspired by Bizet's [Nocturne](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki9XE3IfVgA) from _Carmen_  
**Summary:** Holmes reflects on domestic moments at 221b.

The crackling fire. The painter’s glow it cast upon my companion’s sleeping countenance. The quiet snoring and the open book threatening to spill from lap to rug. The silence, an almost holy absence of household noise, and the late hour, no callers, no clients, no urgency, no distress. Me, sitting at my bench with my chemicals and my note-book; my fellow lodger snug in his armchair, dancing with Queen Mab in her realm.  
  
Peace.  
  
The scene wrapped in a tender sweetness much like cotton wool.  
  
It was Dickensian, our domestic tableau.  
  
Content.  
  
Tranquil.  
  
I was happy, indeed.  
  
Tonight, beneath this wide firmament littered with a myriad of stars, in the dismal cold, in the dreary rain, in a corner of the map so removed in distance and time from 221B Baker Street, I was remembering that picture and more than just remembering it, I was willing the warmth of that fire, that shelter, that companionship, the warmth of that cosy setting, into my being. Were that by some alchemy I might have brew it and drunk it down like the bitter tea which I held tight in an earthen vessel between cupped hands. Drunk the memory down. Swallowed it. Let it fill my belly, my chest, my whole being with its peace, its tender sweetness.  
  
Of course, I reminded myself, with the sternness of a reproving schoolmaster, I was remembering completely, utterly, and hopelessly incorrectly.  
  
How was it?  
  
Well, the fire may have crackled once or twice, but it was more of a sputterer by nature. It was a very English fire, charring everything that neared it, for example, no fewer than three pairs of slippers, and leaving the rest of the room congealed. The snores, in truth, possessed all the delicacy and charm of a freight train in the last stages of consumption. The windows positively rattled on the exhales. A heavy tome would often fall from a lap, hit a half-burned, half-frozen foot, launch a sleeper out of a drooling reverie and lead to a tirade of ungentlemanly cursing and spitting and harrumphing. The natural philosopher despaired of having a single minute of uninterrupted calm in which to centre his mental faculties and advance along the noble path of Science towards Truth.  
  
Everything was jarring and jarred.  
  
And I may have been happy, but I was often bored. No callers and no clients meant no preferred stimulation and thus, I suffered. How I longed for a Yarder’s hurried footsteps on the stairs bearing some seemingly impenetrable problem or some calamity worthy of my well-honed skills and insight!  
And I applied myself to scientific study to avoid the scorn and lecturing that ensued when I elected to treat my boredom chemically. And I could not even anticipate lively conversation because in those days my fellow lodger was not my fellow lodger anymore but rather a contented husband exiled whenever his better half deserted him to nurse an ailing relative. Such refugees, I quickly learned, are preternaturally disposed to doze whenever in the vicinity of a fire, sputtering, crackling, or otherwise.  
  
It was not as I remember, no, but I still missed it.  
  
I looked up into the sky. Even the stars that shone were not the ones that my companion—for Watson was my companion even when we did not share a roof or a rent—would view were he, too, looking heavenward to behold the constellations. I, who was all angles and logic and calculation, discovered the ground unbearably hard, the blankets unbearable thin and coarse, the life, the life I chose and continued to choose over and over for three long years, distressingly burdensome.  
  
Of course, that was wrong, also.  
  
There were moments of peace, moments of silence, moments of insight. It was not all fear and ceaseless flight from unseen pursuers. There were wonders. There were mysteries. Sometimes, I even assisted in unknotting a puzzle or two, much like in London.  
  
I was not always prey, but I was never home and there was never a domestic moment to wash in sepia and frame and hang on the wall of the heart…

* * *

“Holmes.”  
  
A hand on my shoulder.  
  
“Watson.”  
  
I don’t conceal my astonishment. He smiles.  
  
“You were dreaming. And upset. I thought it better to wake you and urge you to go to bed before you distressed yourself, and that pain in your neck of which you were complaining earlier, any further.”  
  
I move abruptly, and the pain in my neck does as well.  
  
“Watson.” I am still disoriented. “Do you live here?”  
  
His smile widens. “I moved back after you returned.”  
  
“You returned!” I echo.  
  
He laughs softly and kisses the top of my head; the affection and intimacy of the act overwhelms me.  
  
“Watson!”  
  
He laughs louder, but then the fire sputters, and a spark lands on one of his slippers, launching him into a profanity-laced jig.  
  
“Go to bed, my love. I shall teach this beast a lesson,” he says, grabbing the poker.  
  
Moment by moment, I return to myself. I remember it all: my return and Watson’s return to Baker Street and the unburdening and the forgiveness and mercy and the declarations and the many, many domestic moments, perfect and imperfect, we’ve enjoyed.  
  
“I was dreaming of dreaming,” I say by way of explanation as I push myself to standing. I gingerly rub my neck and watch my love, for I remember he is my love, do battle with Prometheus’ curse. “I was dreaming I was away and dreaming of here. But my dream, of there and here, if that makes any sense, was a hopeless contradiction of wishing and memory.”  
  
“You can tell me all about it,” he says distractedly as he attacks the fire. “I’ll be there in a minute.”  
  
“You will?” This delights me.  
  
“Yes, I told you. I’m going to try that new salve for your neck.”  
  
I hum and draw a blank when I try to remember him telling me this.  
  
He turns to face me.  
  
“I knew it! You weren’t paying a bit of attention when I told you that I had been all the way to that blasted chemist’s shop in Battersea, the one Oakenshott recommended, to get that deuce of a salve.”  
  
“I’m sorry, Watson,” I say with genuine contrition.  
  
“S’alright,” he assures me. “If it doesn’t work on one thing, it may work on another.” He waggles his eyebrows, then gives me a wink.  
  
“Oh, ho!” I say and shuffle in a rather hasty, undignified fashion toward my bedroom as he grunts and swears at the crackling blaze.  
  
I am happy indeed.


	2. Ruined Empire. [Clara Schumann's Nocture in F Major Opus 6 No. 2]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Title:** Ruined Empire  
**Fandom:** Sherlock Holmes (ACD)  
**Pairing:** Holmes/Watson  
**Length:** 1075  
**Rating:** Gen  
**Prompt:** DW Shortfic comm prompt 035. Ruined empire  
**Notes:** Inspired by Clara Schumann's [Nocture in F Major Opus 6 No. 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Up6esqYMGU) and Shelley's _Ozymandias_.  
**Summary:** Watson and Holmes observe each other on a quiet night train.

_I met a traveler from an antique land._  
  
Shelley. Ozymandias.  
  
Now why were those words surfacing in my thoughts?  
  
Perhaps Holmes could’ve told me, he often knew my mind’s meanderings better than I did, but Holmes was, oddly enough, asleep.  
  
As trains went, this one was quiet. A quiet night train.  
  
Ours was not a sleeper, of course, the journey hardly warranted that, but it was ours; we were alone, Holmes and I, in the compartment. Perhaps that was why Holmes felt relaxed enough to dance with Queen Mab, knowing his faithful companion would be keeping vigil against any unlikely danger. Or maybe he was, quite rightly, topping up his stores of energy in case the problem that awaited us in the morning proved a draining one. Or maybe it was something else entirely. Holmes could often read my mind, but the devil take me, I never had an inkling of what he was thinking!  
  
The train rattled and rolled and swayed and occasionally blew its whistle, but for all that, it was a quiet train. As trains went. And this one did. Go, that is. On and on and on.  
  
Holmes was seated opposite me, his body folded, his head leaning slightly toward the window.  
  
It was an intimate scene, a delicate, gossamer thing. The window might have been the fireplace at 221B Baker Street, but for, in our domicile, it was usually me dozing and Holmes wide awake, applying his mental faculties to one problem or another.  
  
This scene also differed from our domestic tableau in that moonlight was not the same as firelight.  
  
In the silvery glow, Holmes’s features looked cool and hard.  
  
Carved out of stone.  
  
Perhaps that is what had brought Shelley and his Ozymandias to mind. Holmes might have been the last vestige of a ruined empire, half-sunk in desert sands, for the traveler to find.  
  
I appreciated the contrast in Holmes’s face as an artist might: the angularity of his nose and chin and brows, which appeared positively vulpine in curious play of shadow and light, and the softness of the moment and of my regard.  
  
My regard.  
  
_…the sculptor well those passions read_  
  
There were no passions to be read in Holmes’s sleeping face, but in that moment, I was beset by a strong and wholly irrational urge to have a conversation with Monsieur Oscar Meunier, of Grenoble, the fellow who’d done Holmes’s bust in wax. What had been his impressions of the great detective’s visage?  
  
The urge fled as suddenly as it’d arrived.  
  
_Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!_  
  
I had looked on Holmes’s works and, being his Boswell as well as companion, had looked on them as no one else in the world had.  
  
But I hadn’t despaired.  
  
Quite the contrary.  
  
I’d been awed.  
  
And I still was. Even now. Watching him sleep, his face bathed in moonlight.  
  
I didn’t know what the morrow would bring, and I was too old and too scarred not to savour these moments of quiet communion on this quiet night train.  
We journeyed together. Through the night. On and on and on.  
  
How did it end?  
  
No, I didn’t want to know how our story ended.  
  
How did the poem end?  
  
I searched my memory.  
  
Ah, yes.  
  
_The lone and level sands stretch far away._

* * *

Finally, I saw the relaxing of the bodily form that indicated my dear Watson was asleep.  
  
The poor dog had kept his watch long enough; every companion as stalwart as Watson surely deserved a few hours chasing rabbits among heaven’s meadows.  
  
Well done, good and faithful. Now rest. I shall need you at your sharpest in the morning.  
  
How beautiful he was in the moonlight.  
  
And how telling his face.  
  
The lines of age and grief and hardship.  
  
And laughter. Don’t forget the laughter.  
  
The full, thick moustache signifying vanity as well as other natural advantages, advantages which he, Watson, acknowledged with a deprecating smile or a dismissive riposte, but of which I don’t think he was ever truly aware, at least not the way I was. But then who in this world was aware of things, Watsons, included, the way that I was?  
  
Never mind that.  
  
What had Watson been thinking of as he watched me sleeping?  
  
Poetry, probably.  
  
He only got that soft, delicate look in his eyes when he was thinking of poetry.  
  
And you. Don’t forget you.  
  
Heat rose in my cheeks.  
  
To be loved by such a man…  
  
To contemplate it was like looking at the sun or a Gorgon’s gaze, and I quickly turned my mind to other things, leaving Watson’s love to be admired indirectly, as in a pool of water or a mirror. Or a shield.  
  
Art in the blood took its strange forms, and I suffered a fleeting regretful pang that mine wasn’t the same coagulation as Old Uncle Vernet’s. How wonderful it would be to render Watson in charcoal or paints.  
  
Or even clay!  
  
He was a work of art.  
  
If someone found that work of art shattered and half-sunk in the desert, oh, what was that silly poem by that silly man, they would think Watson the last noble warrior of a ruined empire.  
  
How could they not?  
  
The jaw. The chin.  
  
Any amount of soft moonlight could not dilute the strength of character reflected in those features.  
  
But it was the moonlight, I decided with a weary sigh, that was making me wax poetic.  
  
Flouting the admonishing sign at my elbow, I reached for my cigarette case.  
  
Then I put it back meekly.  
  
It wasn’t that I wanted to follow the rules. It wasn’t even that I did not want to run the risk of disturbing my sleeping companion, it was just that lighting another man’s cigarette was one of the few public pleasures society allowed Watson and myself, and it seemed a bit wrong to handle the matter myself when the object of my devotion was less than a foot away.  
  
I’d wait until Watson woke, then ask him.  
  
In the meantime, I’d simply enjoy the companionable silence of a remarkably quiet night train.  
  
And try to remember the rest of that poem.  
  
_I met a traveler from an antique land._  
  
I chuckled silently.  
  
Yes, it had happened like that, hadn’t it?  
  
Brown as a nut, thin as a lathe, etcetera.  
  
Funny how these poet fellows got it right sometimes.  
  
But I looked on my Watson and silently rejoiced.


	3. Manufacturing a sensation [Debussy's Nuages, part one of Nocturnes]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title: The Alchemist & the Wolf  
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes [note: but this is so much an AU that it could be considered an original work]  
Length: 1300  
Rating: Gen  
Prompt: DW Shortfic comm: 030. Manufacturing a sensation.   
Characters: Sherlock Holmes as the alchemist & John Watson as the wolf.  
Inspired by: Claude Debussy's [Nuages](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRN8RA5Vph8), part 1 of 3 of his _Nocturnes_  
Summary: The most skilled alchemist that ever lived made his home in a turret at the top of a thin spindly tower which was ringed by a moat teeming with avaricious crocodiles.

The most skilled alchemist that ever lived made his home in a turret at the top of a thin spindly tower which was ringed by a moat teeming with avaricious crocodiles. The alchemist had a name, but he’d lived alone without corresponding with anyone or speaking to anyone but himself for so long that no one, not the elders of the nearby villages nor even those who wrote the history books, remembered his name. The alchemist did not even remember it himself, for he focused on his work and had no use for anything that did not advance his discoveries.  
  
It might have been said that the alchemist worshipped the old gods, the ones whose temples had been sacked and idols shattered long, long ago, but in truth, he revered most his own mind and the fruits of his own toil. He did not pray. He did, however, keep a small altar. It was set against one wall of the turret, and the alchemist made periodic offerings of meat and flowers and fruit to the invisible pantheon which had allowed him to continue his quest for knowledge for so long.  
  
Let it be said that the alchemist’s quest had not, so far, been in vain. He’d divined the elixir of youth and toasted each new year with a glass to keep himself at the peak of vitality. He’d learned how to alter the simple physical at will, to turn rocks into bread and rainwater into tea, and so, he sustained himself and his investigations.  
  
The turret was almost always in the clouds. His view obscured, the alchemist worked, turning things into other things, solving puzzles, and unraveling mysteries and recordings his findings, successes and failures, in notebooks. When the clouds wept, he collected their tears to quench his thirst.  
  
On the rare occasion that the view from the turret was clear, the alchemist drew his work bench to the window. He looked out on the world and observed the villages and the flying creatures of the air. He revised his maps, and he celebrated the arrival of the clouds, which meant he could return to his inquiries without distraction.  
  
The turret was so high that the alchemist, with the aid of his spyglass, could also see the invading armies as they approached. Sometimes they were pushed back, sometimes they conquered. None ever captured the tower, and the few that tried were quickly devoured by the crocodiles. With every generation, a handful of village youths, daring each other to perform acts of unbridled courage, also met their ends this way. The crocodiles had a taste for folly.  
  
The alchemist kept a halcyon potion of which but a single drop added to the moat waters would serve to calm his scaly guards and inspire them to form a ridged footbridge for him to cross, but he only employed this measure when his supply of rocks was growing low.  
  
Rocks were the fundamental element of his science, and he filled the base of his tower with quarries-worth of stones. Everything, from his daily bread to the offerings he bestowed upon his unseen gods, had their origins as pebbles, flints, boulders, or shards.  
  
The alchemist was so skilled that he could make everything he desired. He made his own ink and his own quills. He made his own paper and his own books. He made his own flasks and his own vials. He kept his own counsel. He was his own debating partner, his own censor, his own instructor.  
  
And so it went on and on until one very clear day, with a bloody civil war that had been waging for many months showing every sign of continuing to wage for many more, the alchemist looked down from his turret and saw a dying wolf.  
  
It was, the alchemist thought, as he reached for his spyglass, no business of his if a wolf or anything else died, but if the creature loped much nearer than it was, the crocodiles would certainly eat it. Something started to rattle, and the alchemist realised it was the stones he was about to turn into bits of choice venison and a stout flagon of wine for the old gods. The rattling increased, and the alchemist became alarms. His whole store of rocks was vibrating.  
  
The alchemist could never say just what prompted him to run down the steps, carrying a vial of reptile-calming potion. It was a sensation he could never replicate or manufacture. He met the dying wolf in the forest. He hoisted the animal on his shoulders and returned with it to the tower.  
  
The novelty of nursing a living beast appealed to the alchemist, and he set at once to clean and bind the creature’s wounds. He made a cushion and a blanket and set the wolf in the centre of the makeshift nest, then he stoked the fire until the turret puffed like an old man with his pipe.  
  
The clouds rolled in.  
  
The alchemist turned his not inconsiderable mental faculties to the wolf’s care. The wolf did not open its eyes, but its chest rose and fell evenly. The alchemist tended it with draughts and poultices and the gentlest of petting.  
The next day, the alchemist turned to catch the wolf eating the gods’ offering off the altar. Alarm gave way to relief when he saw the wolf was now able to stand on four legs. Every day, the wolf grew stronger. Every day, the alchemist made his offerings, now more meat than fruit and flowers, and watched the wolf gobble them down.  
  
The wolf, too, watched the alchemist. At work, the alchemist began to talk aloud, explaining and debating his methods and results. The wolf stretched its legs by running up and down the many flights of stairs like a mountain goat. At night, the alchemist took to using the wolf’s flank as his pillow.  
  
Every parting of the clouds showed no diminishing of the hostilities beyond the tower. The war waged on. The alchemist refused to send the wolf out to its death.  
  
When the moon shone, they howled together.  
  
Week after week, month after month, the alchemist and the wolf went on living in the tower and but for the rocks, they might have continued so forever.  
The alchemist was running out of material.  
  
Every clear day, he looked for peace so that he could leave the tower and gather more rocks, and every clear day, he was disappointed.  
  
His anxiety grew.  
  
Finally, there was only one rock left. He made the wolf a slab of meat, placed it on the altar, and left it for him. The wolf ate it as always, wagging its tail and licking its lips.  
  
Three days went by.  
  
Neither man nor beast ate.  
  
The clouds parted.  
  
War.  
  
The alchemist made his decision. He took a certain vial from a certain pouch and doused himself with the contents. Then he laid himself before the tiny altar and closed his eyes.  
  
The wolf sniffed at him. Then he licked. And then…  
  
Nothing.  
  
The alchemist anticipated being devoured, but when he cracked one eye, he saw looming over him not a wolf but a man, a man who spoke two strange words.  
  
“Sherlock Holmes.”  
  
The alchemist frowned. He did not know this prayer. Then he remembered. It was not a prayer, but his own name, the one the world had forgotten.  
  
“Who are you?” asked the alchemist.  
  
“John Watson.”  
  
This was new.  
  
“What is ‘John Watson’?”  
  
The man smiled. “The last of the old gods. Come. Let us go and solve mysteries together.” He extended his hand. The alchemist took it. He allowed himself to be drawn to his feet and then led down the stairs as cries of jubilation, heralding peace throughout the land, rang out.


	4. Darkness Hangs Heavily. [Chopin's Nocturne No. 1]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Title** Darkness Hangs Heavily  
**Fandom:** Sherlock Holmes (ACD)  
**Rating:** Teen  
**Length:** 1100  
**Pairing:** Holmes/Watson.  
**Prompt:** DW Shortfic comm: 032. Darkness hangs heavily.  
**Notes:** Pre-canon. Alt First Meeting. Nonconsensual Voyeurism. Masturbation. Inspired by Chopin's [Nocturne No. 1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb3vj9zTHX0).  
**Summary:** Holmes sees something on one of his evening rambles.

Darkness hangs heavily and the night is cold, but I am bundled as warmly as a man who values his freedom of limbs may be.  
  
My room in Montague Street is a cell from which I desire escape, day or night, so when a corner of a library or a laboratory is not available, which is often the case more evenings than not, I take to the streets for a ramble, only returning to my designated shelter when I am too exhausted to notice my surroundings.  
  
I walk the length, depth, and breadth of the city.  
  
_and on, and on, and on,_  
and on, I ramble on  
  
On these walks, I challenge my mind in a range of ways. One is to build my geographical knowledge of the city, its landmarks, its plan, its crossroads and thoroughfares. I walk hour upon hour with the objective of mapping the metropolis with my boots, noting the changes in soil and dampness as well as prevailing occupations and attitudes. No avenue is too exalted, and no slum too mired to escape my charting.  
  
When I bore of this, as bore I must, I test myself by observing people rather than geography and draw conclusions about them from their dress and posture and a hundred more little tells. Then sometimes I take a small section of the city and memorise it, then come back again and again, comparing the image in my head to the one before my eyes.  
  
Sometimes I watch the river. Sometimes, the stars and moon. Sometimes, the falling snow.  
  
_and on, and on, and on,_  
and on, I ramble on  
  
I walk swiftly and with determination. My head is held high, and my strides are long and purposeful. Even if I could afford one, I would not take a cab. It would be like putting blinders on a horse. Of course, some horses, like some people, prefer blinders.  
  
But not I.  
  
I listen. I smell. When the cold becomes unreasonable, I indulge in a few swallows of bitter coffee from a street seller.  
  
My breath fogs.  
  
I speak to no one.  
  
I am alone in a city of millions.  
  
Wholly alone.  
  
In the world but not of it.  
  
Just observing. And sharpening my wits on its patterns and anomalies.  
  
I draw my muffler up, covering my lips.  
  
I am not just prepared for the elements; I am also armed for inquiry. In one pocket of my coat, there is a magnifying lens. In the other, a battered pair of opera glasses I inherited from my late mother. They are my eyes when the ones lodged in my sockets prove inadequate. The light is often poor, of course, but I do my best.  
  
Tonight, however, is a full moon, which is, by superstitious alchemy, a double boom to the rambling observer: better means of observation and more chance of something genuinely worth observing.  
  
I am on The Strand, playing what I call the shuffled photograph game.  
  
Passing a hotel on the opposite side of the street, I look up.  
  
My glance is for but an instant, but the image arrests me.  
  
A hand. A gun. A desk.  
  
A ghoulish, juvenile glee stirs in my breast. I look at the near side of the street and cannot believe my luck.  
  
I do a quick circle and come back to the spot, then slip into a darkened side street where I know from previous reconnaissance there is a way into a building that is being gutted for renovation.  
  
With a bit of acrobatics, I find a perch and settle myself into the shadows, where I can see but not be seen. I put the opera glasses to face.  
  
The moon is in my favour.  
  
I realise what I am seeing is the reflection in a mirror, one of those long thin ones often tacked to the door of a wardrobe.  
  
The hand had been holding the pistol, that was what had caught my attention, but now fingers are drumming on the desk. It is a brown hand with a wad of something tucked in the sleeve.  
  
Soldier.  
  
Is he contemplating suicide? Or murder? Or simply shooting the walls out of boredom?  
  
I would not fault him the last.  
  
Winter nights must be so very dreary for anyone as brown as that.  
  
The hand moves. The scene changes. I catch my breath.  
  
I look up and down at the street.  
  
No one, not a soul, is looking up. They would not see him even if they did.  
  
But I see him.  
  
I strain my eyes and lean as far as I dare, and I see him.  
  
He unfastens his trousers.  
  
My mouth instinctively waters at the display, and I am shocked and appalled at my own reaction.  
  
I watch him. I wonder.  
  
Is he distracting himself from his despair as I do with my evening rambles? Is the outlook of a soldier forced to adjust to civilian life before his skin has lost its tropical colour as bleak as my own? I know this is fairy castle thinking; I think it anyway.  
  
I follow the movements of his hand with my eyes. It is my habit to memorise, and I do so now. Learning by rote how he likes his pleasuring, the rhythm of his strokes and pauses and slicking.  
  
His tension mounts. Then there is the release. He produces a handkerchief from that sleeve and cleans himself.  
  
I find it all beautiful. Like a piece of music about the night. Soft and melancholy and unpretentious and full of need.  
  
_and on, and on, and on,_  
and on, I ramble on  
  
I descend from my perch and stow my opera glasses in my pocket.  
  
I walk the rest of the evening, but I could not say where I went nor describe a person, animal, or natural phenomenon whose path I crossed.  
  
I observe nothing.  
  
I simply think of the soldier in the window in the hotel room on The Strand.  
  
I think of his prick. I think of his gun. I wonder what will happen to him.  
  
I spin cobwebs of possibilities, and by the time I return to Montague Street, I am frozen to the core. Fully dressed, I fall into my bed and a few fitful hours of unconsciousness.  
  
I wake with the sharp recollection of the date and that a laboratory at Barts will be available to me, and the prospect of discovery of a scientific nature drives all memory of the soldier in the window out of my mind.  
  
Until I see that hand, shake that hand, some hours later.


	5. A museum inside one's heart [Alkan. Nocturne No. 4. "Le Grillon." (The Cricket)]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Title:** A museum inside one's heart  
**Rating:** Teen  
**Pairing:** Holmes/Watson  
**Length:** 1100  
**Inspired by:** [Nocturne No. 4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oMQtw0OORw) "Le Grillon" (The Cricket) by Charles-Valentin Alkan  
**DW Shortfics Prompt:** .036 A museum inside one's heart.  
**Warning:** Deus ex machina.  
**Summary:** Holmes finds himself in a dark museum, looking at works from his own life.

For pure aesthetic thrill, a museum after dark was without rival, but just how I’d found myself in this singular circumstance was as shadowy as the ambient itself.

A case, surely. It must have been a case.

I entered the gallery on cat-like tread, quiet, careful, certain steps, and halted before a painting.

It was a still life, but a very curious one.

A broad, low table bristled with retorts, test tubes, and a little Bunsen lamp with a blue flickering flame. In the centre of the table stood a vessel. When I planted myself directly in front of the painting, the contents of the vessel had the translucent appearance of pure water, but when I stepped to either side and viewed it, the contents assumed a dull mahogany colour, and a brownish dust appeared to be precipitating to the bottom of the glass jar.

I knew in my heart what invisible matter the vessel contained: a reagent which is precipitated by hæmoglobin, and by nothing else.

Oh, here was a still life worth capturing, much more deserving than fruits or flowers or fowl, but to call it ‘still’ was a misnomer. It was very much alive to me, and it would be alive to all those for whom its power might free or condemn as the case might be.

I dwelt on the scene, wallowing in the double joy of memory, my discovery of the reagent and my introduction to Watson, until I heard a something strange.

_Clickety-click!_

I started, my head swiveling, my eyes darting, above, behind me, below, all in a rather comic effort to locate the source of the sound.

Then it came again.

_Clickety-click!_

It was, without a doubt, the song of a cricket!

How absurd!

I wandered on through the darkened room, ignoring the other works that hung on the walls, and passed through an archway into another room.

The painting that caught my attention could not have done anything else. It was the largest in the room and commanded the gaze of all who drew near it.

I could not read the tiny letters on the golden plaque beside it, but there was no doubt as to the scene.

Dartmoor. Baskerville Hall and its environs.

There was the fiendish hound in all its phantasmagorical glory. There was Sir Henry Baskerville with his defiant glare. There was Stapleton, catching butterflies, and his sister, looking aggrieved. There was Doctor Mortimer and his curly-haired spaniel. There was the man on the Tor, a familiar dark silhouette against the luminescent full moon.

And there was Watson, his revolver drawn, his brow furrowed in concern, watchfulness, and exasperation.

What a case that had been! So many remarkable pieces forming a bizarre but satisfying whole.

I remembered the sharp bite of the initial puzzle, the strong stabs of intrigue and obstacle, and then the final swelling pride at the resolution of all the seemingly incongruous parts and the dispelling of the superstitious legend once and for all.

The canvas was so massive that every character could be shown in fabulous detail, but I had to step back, back, back to view the tableau as one.

I retreated until my body hit another wall, then I heard a sound.

_Clickety-click!_

What a nuisance! Really, such noisy intruder had no place in a museum!

With some reluctance, I abandoned the Baskerville painting and strolled into the adjoining room.

It was dim, and the works on the walls might have been empty squares and rectangles in frames for all the allure they held. My eyes were drawn to the sculpture in the centre of the room, illuminated by a soft glow from a skylight.

A nude in bronze.

I gasped.

_My_ nude in bronze.

On a pedestal, just as he should be.

As I approached the figure, my lips curled in a smile, and I felt something, somewhere stir.

The posture was something affected and rather dandy-like, standing, arms by his side, with one knee bent; it was a stance hat I’d never once seen Watson assume, but that didn’t bother me in the least.

The muscles of the legs, calves and thighs, were perfectly formed. Sinewy, strong. I ached to reach out and run my hands along them. I leaned closer, imagining that I could see the tiny hairs.

I circled ‘round.

Oh, yes, that was his prick. And his stomach.

My mouth watered.

Bronze.

Bronze could be licked, couldn’t it?

I did another turn and looked up.

If I were to lick, that was where I would begin, not at the stomach or even the prick, but rather at the crease between buttock and thigh. I’d paint wet horizontal swathes as I gripped the round gluteal flesh, then spread it and trailed my eager tongue and working lips to the cleft and the puckered little hole that was begging, simply begging, for a tender plundering.

_Clickety-click!_

_Clickety-click!_

Oh, to the devil with that blasted insect!

A wave of sorrow rolled over me. I felt myself being yanked by an invisible cord away. I gave the bronze Watson a look of fond farewell and surrendered to the current.

Oh, damn. This was something modern.

Watson had always said my ideas on modern art were crude, and frankly, I supposed the hound himself rolling around on a canvas with phosphorescent flanks could’ve produced something with more appeal than that, whatever it was.

Frustration rose.

_Clickety-click!_

I turned, straining my eyes, peering into the shadows, searching.

Where was that cricket?

I put one foot in front of the other, quiet, careful, calm, cat-like tread.

_Clickety-click!_

_Click-e-ty Click!_

It began to sound like something else entirely.

* * *

“Come back to me, Holmes! Come back to me, Holmes!”

“Watson?”

“Holmes!” Watson sighed and looked over his shoulder. “It worked! He’s back!”

“I’m very pleased to hear it,” replied a voice. “You gave us quite a scare, Mister Holmes. We’re cataloguers and classifiers; it’s not often we’re called to a live rescue!”

I grunted and tried to move.

“Steady, Holmes.”

Watson’s arms were around me.

“What happened?”

“You and I caught up with the smugglers earlier tonight. Lestrade and the Yarders arrived in time to arrest them, but not before a rather nasty piece of work injected you with a sort of ancient embalming fluid. Luckily, a couple of the fellows who work here were still about in another wing. I have to hand it to them: these chaps who handle the mummies know a thing or two about raising the dead!”

“Thank you, gentlemen, for not allowing the great Sherlock Holmes to become a museum piece!”


	6. Between songs. [Borodin. String Quartet. No. 2. III. Notturno.]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Title:** Between songs  
**Rating:** Teen  
**Pairing:** Holmes/Watson  
**Length:** 1125  
**Inspired by:** [String Quartet. No. 2. III. Notturno](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTPrcBAq28Q) by Alexander Borodin  
**DW Shortfics Prompt:** .037 Between songs.  
**Warning:** Public, oral sex.  
**Summary:** Holmes proves that quite a lot can be accomplished during an intermission.

The concert hall lights went up.

I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the railing of the private box that Holmes had generously reserved for us, and sighed,

“Intermission. Not much to do between songs.”

Holmes made as if he didn’t hear me and dashed out of the back of the box with a single hissed word.

“Watch!”

“Watch what?” I countered, but he was gone.

I sighed again; this time it was no words, just a noise of pure perplexed frustration. I stood up and made to turn toward the dark green curtain that served as rear door to the box, but as I twisted, something caught my eye down in the gallery.

It was Holmes, of course.

He was a fish swimming against the current of people headed up the aisles to enjoy the intermission in the lobby of the hall or perhaps outside in the crisp early autumn air.

But he wasn’t the only one going upstream.

As Holmes wriggled his way through the throng, I spotted a figure some paces behind him, one that I immediately recognised as Detective Inspector Lestrade. Then I remembered that Holmes had, during the first half of the programme, spoken to the usher and later had scribbled some choice words on a piece of paper and given a note to him. I remember being surprised at it as it was usually Holmes’s custom in a concert to be so entranced by the music as to notice nothing of the physical world.

He’d been summoning Scotland Yard.

But for what?

I looked down.

Holmes was at the front of the gallery, nearest to the stage; most of the seats were empty. He turned around to face the rear of the hall.

Lestrade was speaking to a well-dressed young man. There was an equally well-dressed young lady followed by an older woman attempting to exit the row with the man. The young lady wore a necklace which, even from my vantage point, looked to be a costly affair of glittering precious stones set in gold.

Lestrade was gesturing to the young lady, specifically to her neck, and then to the man.

The man was gesturing back, angry, indignant gestures. The young lady’s mouth was open, so was the older woman’s mouth. Both were looking at Lestrade.

The last of the crowd cast curious glances at the quartet as they passed.

When the aisle was clear, Holmes closed in behind the young man and, like a conjuror, produced a necklace that appeared to be identical to the one around the young woman’s neck.

The pair of women’s mouths were open again, and they remained open as Holmes performed a sort of pantomime with the necklace around his own neck: leaning forward, the necklace slipping down, a quick flourish of the hand, the necklace returned to the neck. Then he handed the necklace to the young woman with a little bow. The young woman took the necklace with one hand, the other went to its twin around her neck.

Oh, the scoundrel had done a bit of sleight of hand, and Holmes had caught him! I cast my mind back to the first half of the concert and speculated when precisely the switch might have made. When would all attention have been on the stage?

Oh, yes, that crescendo and the crash of the cymbals.

And just then, as if reading my thoughts, Holmes imitated a cymbal player.

The young woman and the older woman quickly turned their attention to the young man, their postures stiff and their expressions, what little I could discern, stony masks.

The young man froze, then he lurched forward a step, but Lestrade cut him off, with two uniformed police officers appearing swiftly behind him. The young man froze once more, then he pivoted sharply his hand in a fist.

Holmes the former pugilist was more than ready for him. He dodged the blow, and Lestrade and his men seized the young man and hauled him toward the exit, the young woman and the older one following in a clutching, staggering mass behind them.

I thought I heard a sob.

Holmes extended a handkerchief to the pair, but neither paid him the least notice as they passed out of my view.

His arm still outstretched, Holmes looked up at me and gave a dramatic bow.

I couldn’t help it. I clapped.

What a penny opera!

I turned and realised that someone had partially drawn back the dark green curtain so that it hung in great folds over half of the rear portion of the box.

As I stared, Holmes appeared in the open portion of the box, grinning.

I went to him.

And he pushed me into the green velvet and kissed me on the mouth.

I was rendered speechless in more ways than one.

Holmes was not just kissing me in public, well, practically public, but he was kissing me like _that_ in public. It was the swooning, lusty sort of kiss that simultaneously made me lightheaded and hard as a rock.

And he knew it.

“Holmes!” I breathed when I could breath once more. “Is this wise?”

“Not at all,” he whispered back, and it was then that I realised he was rubbing the front of my trousers as if he meant to start a fire there and, I realised with alarm, he was rapidly succeeding at his aim. “Neither is stealing your betrothed jewelry from her very neck in public while you sit but a few inches from her mother,” he added.

I told myself I would question him about that business later. There were more pressing matters at hand, namely his hand pressing on my prick!

“Do you want to torture me?” I groaned softly.

“Never.”

The next few minutes were a dark green velvet mystery to me. I will say only this: Sherlock Holmes had the dexterity of a circus performer and the fellating skill of a seasoned whore. He dropped without leaving the haven of the curtain and brought me to crisis before I even had the wherewithal to protest.

I took the proffered handkerchief and mopped my sweaty brow.

“Arrange yourself while I light cigarettes for us both,” he said.

As the lights went down, we emerged from the curtain and took our seats. Then he leaned in and said quietly,

“You see, Watson, quite a lot can be done between songs.”

And in this, as in almost everything, I was forced to conclude that Sherlock Holmes was right.

But then I realised that Holmes was still speaking.

“…and do pay attention to this next number. It is the real reason we are here tonight. It is the loveliest little nocturne, guaranteed to give you, my dear sweet man, the sweetest of dreams.”


	7. Love is crowding the street. [Debussy. Fêtes. Part 2 of Nocturnes]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Title:** Love is crowding the street.  
**Universe:** The Great Mouse Detective & Sherlock Holmes (ACD)  
**Rating:** Gen  
**Length:** 1090  
**Characters:** Holmes, Watson, Basil of Baker Street, David Q. Dawson  
**Prompt:** DW shortfics prompt 028. Love is crowding the street.  
**Inspired by:** Debussy's [Fêtes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUXtsmV8LYs), part 2 of _Nocturnes_  
**Summary:** Basil & Dawson get some help thwarting a plot on Guy Fawkes night.

“We can’t let him get away, Dawson!”

“But wait, Basil,” called Dawson, panting as he followed in Basil’s wake up the ladder.

They reached the roof of 221 Baker Street, and Dawson cried,

“You said that thing wasn’t perfected yet!”

Basil hopped onto the seat of winged bicycle and began to pedal. He shouted above the rising wind,

“Nothing like a trial run! Or a maiden voyage! Go tell Mister Holmes the whole business and meet me at the bridge—before it falls down!”

Basil and his contraption lifted off into the dusky sky, leaving Dawson catching his breath and gawking in wonder.

“By Jove, it does fly!” Then he started, remembering Basil’s charge. “Oh, dear me! Mister Holmes!”

* * *

“You are right, Watson, is a singularly marvelous sunset,” said Sherlock Holmes whilst standing at the window of 221B Baker Street. “Proof that humans are only striving to imitate the colourful pyrotechnics that Mother Nature invented.”

“Indeed,” murmured Doctor Watson vaguely, his thoughts consumed by the search for a suitable mallet with which to strike the bonfire toffee he had bundled in wax paper in his coat pocket.

“Quick, Watson, toss me my telescope! There, on the desk!”

It was the work of a moment.

“If I’m not mistaken that is our downstairs neighbour, Mister Basil.”

“Really?” asked Watson, abandoning his search and joining Holmes at the window.

“Look,” said Holmes, handing Watson the telescope.

“Oh, my word! He’s flying!”

“And pursuing something that is also flying and, judging by the fury with which he’s applying himself, I’d say there’s trouble about.”

“But where’s Doctor Dawson?”

“Here,” said a ragged voice from a hole in the wainscoting. “Oh, Mister Holmes, you must help, or London Bridge will be falling down, tonight!”

* * *

“Oh, damn these cabs,” muttered Holmes impatiently. “We can’t possibly make it in time this way. Not with all this traffic. Do you still have them in your sights, Watson?”

“Yes,” said Watson, his eye to the telescope. “They are headed for the bridge.”

“Poor Basil must be exhausted,” fretted Dawson. “All that pedaling.”

“I think he’s being helped along by the winds,” said Watson, “but so is, what did you call that bat?”

“Fidget.”

“We must run for it, Watson,” said Holmes.

“Of course,” agreed Watson resolutely.

“Doctor Dawson, why don’t you ride in the pocket of my cloak and act as navigator?”

Dawson readily acceded to this plan and vacated his perch on Watson’s shoulder for Holmes’s woolen pouch.

Even as Watson was pressing coins to the drivers’ palm, Holmes was racing through the crowd.

“So many people!” he swore as he dodged and leapt and was vexingly forestalled by the throng, “Now I know why salmon die after they make their arduous upstream journey: sheer frustration!”

Watson chased after Holmes.

“Now what?” he panted when they reached the bridge.

Dawson pointed.

Holmes and Watson looked up.

Fidget’s balloon was nearing the metal platform with Basil close behind.

“There’s nothing for it, then, but to scale new heights!” cried Holmes. “Watson, send word to Scotland Yard!”

“Holmes!”

* * *

Up, up, up.

“Not afraid of heights, I hope, Doctor Dawson,” said Holmes.

Dawson peeked out of the pocket and shivered. “No, not at all,” he lied. Then he craned his head. “There’s the first bundle, Mister Holmes.”

“Ah, I see it. So, I snip the wires with my cutters? Hang on.” He retrieved a pair of pliers from a pocket and reached out to severe the bundle of explosives from its fuse. “How many more?”

“Two!” Dawson had crawled to Holmes’s collar in order to shout in his ear, the better to be heard over the bitterly cold wind.

Holmes climbed.

“There!” cried Dawson.

Holmes repeated the act of reaching and cutting the wires. “Oh, dear, Doctor Dawson,” he said, studying the scaffolding, “I believe this is as far as I can go.”

“But Basil! Look! He’s fighting with Fidget! And the evil Ratigan! Oh, I must go!”

And with that, Dawson tugged a handkerchief from Holmes’s pocket and, holding a corner in each paw, shook it, unfurling the cambric.

Then he jumped into the wind.

“BASIL! I’M COMING!”

Holmes watched as the round mouse and his makeshift parachute rode the gusts until he reached the high perch where the scuffle was taking place.

Despite the cold and the wind, Holmes’s grasp on the beams of the bridge was firm when the first explosion sounded. A stab of horror gripped his heart.

Had Basil and Dawson failed?

But, no.

The explosion hadn’t been a bomb. It had been accompanied by a cascade of golden lights to the shouts of delight below.

The fireworks.

Another burst. Another cascade, this one a bright white light.

Then, a whoosh!

Holmes saw a dark bundle with a tail of rope tangling ‘round a large rat and a gibbering bat fall past him into the river. The bundle fizzled in the water. Then he heard his name.

“MISTER HOLMES!”

Holmes reached his hand out just in time to catch the two plummeting mice.

“Well done, Mister Basil!”

“Nice catch, Mister Holmes,” said Basil. “Yes, once more Ratigan’s evil schemes are foiled.”

“You saved the day again, Basil!” said Dawson, scampering along Holmes’s arm to his collar.”

“We need to do the same to the two other bundles on the way down,” observed Holmes. “But be very careful how we drop them. I don’t want to hit a passing barge, though perhaps Watson and Scotland Yard have cordoned the area. We shall time them with the fireworks, and few shall notice.”

“Excellent plan, Mister Holmes. I shall advise you as to your descent, which any mouse can tell you, is more perilous than the ascent.”

“I am grateful for the assistance, Mister Basil. Let’s go. I’m certain by now Watson is frantic with worry.”

Holmes climbed down.

Minutes later, Basil was calling,

“Ready, set, go!”

Holmes dropped the bundle.

BOOM!

“Oh, look at it, Basil!” sighed Dawson at the burst of red and the falling showers of light.

“Chemistry, my dear Dawson. Beautiful chemistry,” said Basil.

“And look at the crowds!” gasped Dawson. “From up here, it seems, well, as if love is crowding the streets and joy is filling the air!”

“Indeed, the celebration is, as I understand, to commemorate a plot that failed. And we have honoured it in the best way possible: by thwarting another nefarious plot.”

“Indeed, one more and I think we can declare victor,” said Holmes. “And then, I think, mugs of mulled cider and Watson’s beloved bonfire toffee.”

BOOM!


	8. They were talking of integrity. [Dvořák. Nocturne in B Op. 40]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Title:** They were talking of integrity  
**Fandom:** Sherlock Holmes (ACD)  
**Pairing:** Holmes/Watson  
**Rating:** Teen  
**Length:** 1005  
**Prompt:** DW Shortfics comm: 039. They were talking of integrity.  
**Notes:** Fluff. Inspired by Dvořák's [Nocturne in B Op. 40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXl-Rh4Dlro) and a favourite line from "The Red-Headed League": _“You see, Watson,” he explained in the early hours of the morning as we sat over a glass of whisky and soda in Baker Street, “it was perfectly obvious..."_  
**Summary:** Holmes & Watson share a drink after a case.

They were talking of integrity and naiveté. They were talking of greed and guile. They were talking of cunning and stupidity.

Though the clock on the mantelpiece proclaimed it to be Sunday already, the day of rest had yet to dawn, and an atmosphere of Saturday night stubbornly persisted within the walls of 221B Baker Street.

A certain, seemingly banal question had been posited in the cab ride home and a certain, equally banal reply had been issued, and thus, upon return to their rooms, the two occupants of the cab had quickly rearranged their respective armchairs.

And when the tenants of 221B Baker Street were finally prepared to sit, they sat much closer than was their habit. They were, indeed, almost side by side facing the fire, with a single small table between them and a single glass of whisky and soda upon that table.

They began by reviewing the details of the case.

Holmes explained, step by step, his reasoning in the solution to the bizarre set of events which had befallen poor Jabez Wilson, he of the fiery red hair and, from the point of view of a bank robber, ideal business address.

Watson asked the usual questions and proffered the usual ejaculations of wonder. Holmes smirked and shrugged and sighed and spoke in Gallic axioms, in turn.

After the subject of case itself had been exhausted, conversation turned from the specific to the general and Holmes began to speculate about human nature, each drawing conclusions that the other took pleasure in popping like soap bubbles, each giving evidence by way of anecdotes, and, quite simply, both indulging in a bit of philosophising about the mysteries of human mind and heart.

And so, they were talking of integrity and naiveté, of greed and guile, of cunning and stupidity. It was, in fact, the sort of wandering, somewhat fantastic, hopelessly circuitous discussion that might take place between any pair of companions at the end of a long but thrilling day.

But for the glass between them.

For while they were talking as friends, they were drinking as lovers.

First was the pace. Initially, Watson made a concerted effort to take the tiniest of sips in order to prolong the affair, knowing that a second glass was not be had that night, or to be more precise, that early morning. Holmes, too, took tiny sips, but he did so throughout, because he genuinely did not like whisky and soda and would not be drinking it at all were it not Watson’s spirit of choice for marking the conclusion of one of their adventures.

Second, it is worth noting Holmes’s affectation of turning the glass to sip from precise spot on the rim where Watson took his sips, a gesture, which when repeated as often as it was, requires no further embroidery or interpretation.

Third, and most telling, were their fingers, which brushed each other, casually, and then less casually, until they were, effectively, caressing each other’s digits with their thumbs tapping the sides of the glass.

It formed a singular contrast: they were holding forth in one language and holding hands in another, far more intimate one.

And then, at last, the glass was drained of its contents, mostly as a result of Watson’s impatience to have his hand on other parts of Holmes’s anatomy.

And then they were no longer talking of talking of integrity and naiveté, of greed and guile, of cunning and stupidity. Indeed, from that moment until just before they drifted off to sleep, Holmes and Watson ceased talking altogether.

They got to their feet and by mute, long-standing division of labour, Holmes tended to the fire and Watson the glass.

And then with gestures as formal as those witnessed in any stately ballroom the world over, Holmes led Watson by the hand, by that very same hand of Watson’s that he’d been teasing to distraction, to impatience, to anything but philosophical musings. Yes, Holmes led Watson by the hand to bed.

His own bed, of course.

And Watson got to place his hands where he’d long wanted them, which was on Holmes’s body, and, naturally, Holmes got to reciprocate.

The bed creaked very quietly as they tasted the whiskey and soda on each other’s lips. This was the way Holmes preferred whisky and soda, and Watson, for his part, was charmed and aroused in equal measure.

It might be mentioned here that Holmes’s bed at that moment was much more accommodating of early morning lovemaking than its predecessor had been, and if Mrs. Hudson had wondered how a bed of monastic size and aesthetics had burnt to cinders from a lone, careless cigarette while leaving its sleeper and the rest of the household unscathed and had then been replaced by an exceedingly luxurious model large enough for, say, two strapping gentlemen to comfortably enjoy Queen Mab’s embrace side by side, well, she’d been amply compensated on rent day for not speaking her mind on the matter.

And so it was then, as always, into Holmes’s bed they sank upon retiring together. And so it was that as the last bits of night were lifting and the lark, that harbinger cursed by lovers in every alcove and every age, was perched and proud and readying its lauds, each occupant of the only bed occupied at 221B Baker Street came to crisis at the other’s expert coaxing.

Holmes and Watson took turns cleaning themselves at the washstand. When they’d both returned to bed, a languor washed over them which was as thick and deliciously comforting as the bedclothes under which they tucked their weary, spent forms.

They whispered oaths in each other’s ear just before they succumbed to slumber: words of love and affection and regard and gratitude to Providence for having so wisely and fortuitously crossed their paths.

And then the night was through, gone, vanished, and, having dutifully left a note for their sainted landlady that they would not be breaking their fasts until luncheon, Holmes and Watson slept.


	9. The thought of it chills my bones. [Irving Fine. Notturno for Strings and Harp]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Title**: The thought of it chills my bones  
**Fandom**: Sherlock Holmes (ACD)  
**Characters/Pairings**: Holmes/Watson  
**Rating**: Gen  
**Words**: 1100  
**For**: DW shortfics prompt 052. The thought of it chills my bones.  
**Notes**: Watson reflects on the nature of darkness in "The Case of the Speckled Band." Inspired by Irving Fine's [Notturno for Strings and Harp](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDUW-AzSfaI).

_Tonight, by some gossamer association of memory, I am remembering that terrible night Holmes and I spent at Stoke Moran, and the thought of it chills my bones._

_What I remember most is the absolute darkness._

_I am no stranger to darkness, neither do I fear it, as a rule. I know that sometimes darkness welcomes. Sometimes, it blankets. Sometimes, it even embraces. On more than one occasion in a long and colorful life, I have gleefully plunged myself into darkness and been willingly swallowed up by it._

_Darkness can be quite amiable. Especially with the right companion._

_But the darkness of that night, the night that Holmes and I spent in uncovering the truth of the death of Julia Stoner and the imminent threat to her sister Helen, repulsed me, and I cannot imagine any soul relishing the dreadful darkness contained by the four walls of that cursed bedroom save our adversary in the case, the master of Stoke Moran._

_The thought of him chills my bones, too._

_That night, as soon as Holmes closed the shutters of the bedroom, cutting off the least ray of light, I sensed the darkness as a being in and of itself. It was a creature, much like the cheetah and the baboon that roamed wild on the estate grounds. The darkness was in and of Stoke Moran and in and of its master._

_Holmes has ever scoffed at my fanciful imagination, but it seemed to me that the darkness knew that he and I were intruding upon, and thus bearing witness to, its complicity in wickedness._

_It saw us. And it knew us for the challenge we were. We dared its reign, its web of evil._

_Yes, evil._

_The darkness menaced. It curled its lips back to display rows of sharp, inky teeth._

_The darkness was unusual in that it stubbornly resisted any accommodation to vision. It never surrendered its uniform black to shadings of grey and darker grey. I passed hour after hour in that bedroom and never saw more clearly than when Holmes first closed the shutters. I’d kept vigil many times and in many places before that night and have kept it oftener since and never in my experience has a darkness been so unyielding, so impenetrable._

_The darkness was an amorphous well. It was the miasmic monster living at and forming the bottom of the pit. It crawled up and peered out and enveloped._

_I remember my anxiety._

_When Holmes and I commenced our watch, I had only a dim understanding of the subtle and horrible crime the darkness was shielding, but ignorance only made my condition worse._

_I am no stranger to fear. A soldier and, for that matter, a doctor acts despite fear. I was fearful not because of the danger, but because I did not know what shape the danger was to take. That long, thin cane of Holmes’s, the one he placed on the bed beside himself, what was that for? What could that do that my revolver could not? It vexed me, the not knowing. _

_I am a patient man, waiting is like breathing to me, but I did not know what I was waiting for!_

_I did know, however, with all certainty, the source of the danger._

_“We must sit without light. He would see it through the ventilator.”_

_He. Roylott._

_I shan’t dignify him with the title of ‘Doctor.’ Whatever oath he took at the start of his career he most certainly sullied beyond recognition by the end of it._

_He was responsible for the death of one of his stepdaughters. He meant to do away with her sister, too, in the same manner. For money. And he was cruel as well as greedy. The bruises on Helen Stoner’s arm attested to his capacity for violence._

_“This man strikes deeper, but I think, Watson, that we shall be able to striker deeper still.”_

_Good, I remember thinking, strike as deep as required to show this bastard, yes, bastard, that his cruelty and greed and wickedness have met their match. He will no longer be able to go creeping round in the darkness, unobserved, undetected, unhindered in his evil works._

_I remember the darkness._

_I remember the sounds, too. They were so few._

_I remember Holmes’s faint whisper in my ear._

_“Do not go asleep; your very life may depend upon it. Have your pistol ready in case we should need it. I will sit on the side of the bed, and you in that chair.”_

_Nothing reassuring about that! It was a biblical warning: you know not day nor the hour, etcetera._

_The chair did not creak when it bore my weight, and the revolver made but a single tap of metal on wood as I laid it on the corner of the table._

_I remember the deep tones of the parish clock striking twelve, one, two, and three; and the cry of a night-bird heard but twice; and the cat-like whine of the cheetah, thankfully, heard only once in long, blessed lifetime._

_And that was all I heard._

_I did not hear any breathing, Holmes’s or my own, I did not hear any pounding of blood through vessels, either, but I knew that Holmes was, like myself, in a state of nervous tension._

_We waited for it._

_We waited in the absolute darkness, in the near silence, together._

_We waited for an evil to show its face._

_In the end, it was only a momentary gleam from a spot near the ceiling._

_“You see it, Watson? You see it?”_

_I saw the flame of Holmes’s match and the horror on his face and that was the end of the darkness. The true evil, however, would only be revealed to a few moments later when—_

* * *

I felt a hand on my shoulder. I cried out. I dropped the pen upon the page.

“My dear man!” breathed Holmes, giving my shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “I’m terribly sorry. I had no wish to startle you.”

I sat, panting hard, shaking my head. “I feel rather foolish,” I confessed.

“You were somewhere else entirely.”

I nodded at my scribblings. “I was just writing a few thoughts about—”

“Stoke Moran? Yes, I can see why. It is a similar atmosphere, as you writers like to call it. But, close the window. Come to bed. We’re for home in the morning, and we’ve enough candles to burn them all night if required.”

“I’ve my revolver,” I said.

Holmes smiled and patted my back. “And I’ve my stick. Let’s let the darkness keep its own company tonight.” 


	10. It's no good trying to sleep. [Johann Kaspar Mertz. 3 Nocturnes for Guitar, opus 4]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Title:** It's no good trying to sleep  
**Rating:** Mature  
**Length:** 1020  
**Pairing:** Holmes/Watson  
**Notes:** Massage. Assisted masturbation. Inspired by [3 Nocturnes for Guitar, opus 4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqn4T3-Gt68) by Johann Kaspar Mertz.  
**For:** DW shortfics prompt 051. It's no good trying to sleep  
**Summary:** Watson longs for a horse ride across the moor.

“It’s no good trying to sleep,” I grumbled as the night-express pulled out of Tavistock.

“You are cross, my dear man, because we had only one brief charming little breath of beautiful Dartmoor air.”

“And because it seems that you are giving up the investigation of the disappearance of the horse Silver Blaze and the death of the trainer John Straker. Giving up after a brilliant beginning is incomprehensible to me!”

“If I explain myself, will you be satisfied?”

“Mostly.”

“Why mostly?”

“Because such journeys are tiring, Holmes, and I enjoyed our tromping about the moor today. The low, bronze-coloured curves stretching away to the horizon. The hollows and brambles in the setting light. Reds fading to greys. I believe the glories of the Devonshire landscape were quite lost on you.”

“True.”

“And I was never a cavalryman, but I would’ve enjoyed a ride if it had been on offer, which I fancy it might have been if we’d stayed more than a few scant hours! And if you’d been just a bit more mannerly to our host, Colonel Ross.”

Holmes hummed, then sank into a few moments of silent, brooding contemplation.

“There are some tasks that require my attention in London tomorrow, and I had anticipated us going to Winchester to see the race for the Wessex Cup in four days’ time, but in the interim, perhaps we can return to the moor for a short bucolic holiday. What say you?”

I shot Holmes a look, crossed my arms over my chest, and harrumphed.

Holmes tried not to smile and, interpreting my gestures correctly, continued at a persuasive purr. “A leisurely return, not to King’s Pyland, but to a place nearby with similar charms. We reserve accommodation at a country inn and ‘tromp about’ the remainder of the day. I imagine the views are much improved when one isn’t searching for horse tracks and can afford to raise one’s gaze from the mud. We fill our lungs to bursting with the Devonshire air and, the following day, go out on hired horses. The third day we make our way to Winchester for the Cup and the resolution to the case, which, I imagine, will come with an apology from Colonel Ross and perhaps that stalwart gentleman eating a thin slice of crow.”

“Will you speak your mind to me about the case now?”

“What say you to my plan?”

“I say ‘yes.’”

“Then, yes. Where shall I begin?”

“With the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime.”

* * *

Two nights later, I was rolling towards Holmes, tucking my body along the length of his.

“It is a pity,” I whispered in his ear, “that the inn only has one room and that the room has only one bed.”

He hummed. “And that the inn has only one innkeeper, and that that innkeeper is deaf.”

“I quite enjoyed today, Holmes.”

“I know. Your appreciation for the Devonshire countryside was evident the way you attacked the evening’s mutton stew.”

“How was that?”

“With relish. With vigour.”

“I shall devour you the say way.”

“I know.” Then Holmes sighed theatrically and added, in a mock whine, which might have been more convincing if it hadn’t ended on a hopeful note, “It’s no good trying to sleep, I suppose?”

“None at all,” I replied as I slid my hand beneath his nightshirt.

* * *

“Dear me, Holmes,” I said with another wince.

“Yes, you really aren’t a cavalryman, Watson. I am afraid our excursion today went far beyond the limits of your horsemanship. It is fortunate that the provisions we carried for our al fresco lunch were so ample, you did no justice to tonight’s mutton stew.”

“It wasn’t the eating that bothered me,” I protested. “It was the sitting to eat!” I sighed. “I enjoyed today as much as yesterday, but I am no longer a young man.”

“Here.” Holmes pressed some bread with cheese to my lips, which I took eagerly.

Holmes fed. I ate.

When the offerings ceased, he asked,

“Better?”

“Much.”

“Now, where are the liniments I know you packed for just such eventuality?”

I told him.

* * *

I sucked in a sharp breath. “Gentle, Holmes.”

Holmes hummed. His fingers rose slightly, relieving the direct pressure to my torqued, abused musculature, but they did not slow the speed of their rubbing nor the quality of care paid. His voice dropped. “You aren’t accustomed to riding, are you, Doctor?”

My lower body might not have been used to the discomforts of the saddle, but it responded at once, and very keenly, to Holmes’s familiar tone of flirtation.

“I often have a preference for being ridden.”

“What lucky jockeys,” murmured Holmes. “To cross a finish line with you must be a great pleasure.”

I snickered and continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “But when I do ride, I find the seat much softer and accommodating than today’s, as charming as my steed was and however much I enjoyed our explorations of the moorland.”

I reached out a hand to touch what part of Holmes I could and began to caress him.

Holmes hummed encouragingly at my fondling. His fingers had reached my inner thighs and were working them with the deep touch he’d tried earlier. I did not recoil or protest anymore.

Quite to the contrary, I rolled onto my back.

My nightshirt was soon rucked up to my waist, my legs splayed, my feet flat on the bed, my hips slightly lifted.

“Holmes,” I groaned. I closed my eyes and rolled my head away. “May I entrust all of my aches to your expert ministrations?”

“You may.”

“Then I shall return the favour.” I groaned again. ““It’s no good trying to sleep in a place like this, after the days we’ve had, the walking, the riding, the extraordinary landscape, the moor, and the air! Oh, the air!”

“Winchester is not so far, Watson. We may have a lie-in tomorrow and still comfortably ready ourselves for the race and putting Colonel Ross out of his misery. Now, I shall turn my attention to putting you out of yours, my beautiful man!”

“Oh, God, yes!”


	11. I do without an answer [Field's Nocturne No. 1 in E flat]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Title:** I do without an answer  
**Length:** 1015  
**Rating:** Teen  
**For:** DW shortfics comm prompt 058. I do without an answer  
**Inspired by:** John Field's [Nocturne No. 1 in E flat](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-M-kQ4AJls)  
**Notes:** Hurt/comfort  
**Summary:** A case frustrates Holmes. Watson helps.

I do without an answer in many cases, much more than Watson’s public chronicles suggest. In stating this, I am not finding fault with my Boswell. Even I realise that a series about a marginally unsuccessful detective would hardly appeal to the reading masses. Nevertheless, the reality is that many of the cases which come to my attention go wholly unsolved or only partially illuminated before they pass on into history.

I feared the case before me would be counted among these failures. I had all the relevant documents arrayed within view on the desk. I also had a note-book where I had written, and rewritten, copious observations, clarifications, and interpretations of my own.

I had the pieces. I could not, however, find the pattern in which they fit.

I had only myself and my faculties to blame for the block, however, as conditions on that night were ideal for concentration.

For starters, it was quiet. And there was an admirable fire in the fireplace. Supper had been satisfying, appealing to the palate and sufficiently nourishing but not too heavy or distractingly toothsome. Conversation with Watson had been pleasant. He’d read for an hour and then taken his leave, retiring to his bedchamber after a brush of his lips at my temple and a kind, encouraging word in my ear.

I went to the desk. I poured over the information before me.

I made more notes, futile, seemingly imbecilic notes.

Frustrated, I retreated to my armchair and smoked a pipe. Then, I got to my feet and waltzed about the sitting room, playing my violin, my selection a low and meditative melody of my own improvised composition.

Still frustrated, still at a loss, I abandoned bow and instrument and returned to the desk.

Another hour passed. Or perhaps two. The clock ticked and chimed, but I paid it not the slightest heed.

I was hunched over the desk when I felt a hand rest lightly on my neck.

I did not start, but I was surprised. I had not heard Watson’s approach.

Without a word, his strong hands guided my back to straightening and then stretching with arms overhead, reaching for the ceiling and the extended out sideways. His fingers went to my nape, kneading, then loosening the hard knots.

“I don’t understand it,” I confessed in a whisper of dismay. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“Yet,” he murmured. “Close your eyes.”

My eyelids fluttered, then complied. At once, I relaxed into Watson’s touch, into his unhurried care. His fingers found the cordons on either side of my neck and massaged them, up and down. He rubbed deep circles into my temples and smoothed my hair as if petting the fur of a sleek cat.

He moved to my right side and removed the pen which I still clenched with a tight grip. He set the pen quietly on the desk and began to apply his wonderful pressure to my hands.

He also began to hum something soft and sweet, something delicate and tender, something about the night, not a night of passion or a night of danger or a night of despair.

It was just a night. A night like any other.

Like that night.

The tension from my arms melted under Watson’s ministrations, which moved from fingers to palm to wrist up to the elbow. He showed attention to both arms but focused his efforts on the right, where I was most cramped.

I was clay in his hands. As he unmade me and remade me with his touch, that tune, that sweet little hummed melody, performed a similar dissolving of my brittle thoughts.

A trickle of water with enough time and enough patience, I recalled, could break a stone in half. Such was the power of my Watson’s care. It was a tiny unassuming trickle breaking my fossilised inertia.

Sometimes, as Watson has himself written, he was a whetstone to me, a surface upon which I sharpened my wits, but that night felt different. I was not getting sharper. On the contrary, I was becoming more fluid, my edges were blurring, and the facts of the case, when I could remember them at all, were like watercolours, bleeding into one another.

With his hands, one at my lower back and one at my waist, Watson bid me stand. When I’d got to my feet, he guided me to the sofa. Through extensive trial and error, Watson and I had discovered the exact position by which two grown men can extend themselves upon on that piece of furnishing, and that was the familiar tableau in which he posed us.

I was as meek as a lamb, allowing him to do with me as he wished.

Watson, for his part, kept humming in my ear.

It was a sweet, calm, unprepossessing night. Just a night. A night like any other.

That is what his lullaby was saying to me.

I curled into him, eyes closed, one arm slung about him in haphazard fashion.

He stroked my head and the side of my face, but he did not speak. Nor did he kiss me. He just kept humming.

I thought I might fall asleep in his arms. I had done so before that night but never, if memory served me, on the sofa.

Everything was soft and swirling. Everything was soft.

And then.

And then.

CLICK!

All the pieces fell into place! I had it!

“By Jove, Watson!” I ejaculated.

I do without an answer in many cases, but that one was not destined to fall among the unsolved. I sprang to the desk, crossing the distance in a single goat-like bound, took up my pen and a clean sheaf of paper and began scribbling furiously.

I heard Watson’s chuckling. He must’ve got to his feet. He may have bid me good night. He might also have shuffled to the stairs in his worn slippers.

My dear companion would suffer without a word of gratitude only temporarily. I would more than make it up to him when a midnight missive had been dispatched to Scotland Yard.


	12. The gates are closing [Britten, Op. 11, On This Island, No. 4]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Title:** The gates are closing  
**Rating:** Gen  
**Length:** 1040  
**Characters/Pairing:** Holmes/Watson, Mrs. Hudson, Esme the housemaid  
**For:** DW shortfics prompt #64: The gates are closing.  
**Inspired by:** Benjamin Britten's Nocturne, Op. 11, _On This Island_, No. 4. Sung by Barbara Bonney [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJpF0rg87DI). The words are by W. H. Auden.  
**Notes:** The same AU as [Three Toasts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11550711/chapters/60088444). Captain Basil is away from London when Watson falls gravely ill.

‘The gates are closing,’ I thought with whining anxiety. ‘The gates are closing, and I am not ready for them to close.’

I could tell it was nighttime by the dark window. I had given up trying to remember how many days I had been in this bed, how many days I had been ill, but I kept checking that small, high window. Not the clock, I no longer cared about the hour. I had simplified my desire for temporal orientation.

Was it day or night?

It was night.

_‘Now through night’s caressing grip / Earth and all her oceans slip’ _

‘Let me slip through the gate,’ I prayed. ‘Let me slip through the gate once more.’

I supposed it was inevitable that should contract the dreaded influenza, that illness which had already claimed so many of the city’s inhabitants and some of them my patients.

For one reason and one reason alone was I grateful for Holmes’s absence: it would lessen his chances of contracting it himself. This was a particularly vicious form, this influenza; it was an illness that was claiming young and old, frail and hale alike. And now would it count me among its victims?

It seemed a shame to have survived Maiwand only to be taken down by a hard cough. There was no bravery here, no sacrifice, nothing noble.

I listened the click-click-click of the night nurse’s knitting needles.

The fact that Mrs. Hudson had engaged a night nurse at all was a sign. I wondered what else she had done. Had she sent word to Holmes about my condition? I was afraid to ask her. Just why I was afraid I could not rightly put into words. If the answer was yes, it was yet another sign that I was, indeed, dying. And if the answer was no, well, for some reason that threatened to break my heart.

Thus, it was better not to ask, not to know.

_‘Now the ragged vagrants creep / Into crooked holes to sleep.’_

Here I was, my lungs like two ragged vagrants creeping into the crooked hole of my chest cavity to sleep.

The night did funny things to a man’s head, even when he wasn’t dying.

I imagined Holmes bursting through the door and taking him in my arms. Regardless of onlookers or eavesdroppers, I would confess all, everything he meant to me, every way my life had been made better for having known him, everything that my mind could conceive and that my lips and voice could utter.

He must know. He must know in my own words how much I loved him.

I thought of writing it all down in ink and paper, but the windows of opportunity for such effort had long since been shuddered by this illness. I barely had the strength to lift a pen, much less to pour out all that I wished to pour out. And none of what I wished to say was something I’d consider dictating, even to Mrs. Hudson. If that good lady were by my bedside at the very end, the very end of me, that is, I would simply tell her to tell Holmes I loved him.

_‘And the losing gambler gains / And the beggar entertains.’_

The beggar entertains what?

Hope.

‘The gates are closing,’ I thought as I heard the rattle of rusted metal straining at the hinges and realised, with growing horror, that it was, in fact, my own chest. ‘The gates are closing, and I am not ready for them to close!’ my mind sang with the open-mouthed force of an operatic star.

* * *

I could not sleep.

I had one thought: Watson.

What would I find when I returned?

Perhaps he had made a full recovery already. Perhaps Mrs. Hudson would apologise for her hasty message and the alarm it caused.

If so, I would fall to my knees in relief and sleep for a month on the bare rug.

Perhaps Watson was already dead. I did not hold with such foolish notions that I would somehow sense Watson’s demise through the ether or have it announced by an oracle in my dreams. After all, I had not any notion that he was ill prior to Mrs. Hudson’s telegram. I thought he was taking care of those who were suffering during the influenza epidemic; that was why he declined to accompany me, or, to be more precise, Captain Basil, on this case.

Would I arrive in time for a funeral? Or would I be forced to leave flowers on a newly settled grave?

I considered all the of possibilities, and most of them were grim.

I considered Watson in his sickbed in the upper bedroom. I considered that he might be contemplating the same night that I was and thinking of me just as I was thinking of him. I considered his weak lungs, his pained body. I drove myself half-mad considering.

Finally, when I had tired myself of considering, I took a walk on deck and found the North Star in the dark firmament.

Watson was my fixed point in a changing age, and so it seemed appropriate to ask another fixed point for grace on his behalf.

_‘May sleep’s healing power extend_

_Through these hours to our friend._

_Unpursued by hostile force,_

_Traction engine, bull or horse,_

_Or revolting succubus. _

_Calmly til the morning break_

_Let him lie, then gently wake.’ _

I closed my eyes and, in my heart, sang the words. Then I retreated to my bunk and hoped that I would arrive in time.

* * *

“Doctor Watson?”

I dropped my bag on the rug.

“Is still with us.”

I clasped Mrs. Hudson’s hand in both of mine and bestowed upon her all the gratitude that the moment and my impatience allowed. I nodded to Esme, pushed between maid and employer, and hurried up the stairs.

“Watson!”

“Oh!”

I scooped him up in my arms.

“The gates were closing, Holmes. They have been closing hour, upon hour,” he muttered.

“I have shoved a stubborn stick in, my dear, dear man. They shan’t close anymore.”

He wheezed a chuckle. “I shall fight, Holmes. You are here, and I shall fight.”

“We’ll fight together. No gate shall close. Not yet.”


	13. A soul long among the mountains. [Barber. Nocturne. Op. 13, No. 4]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Title:** A soul lost among the mountains.  
**Rating:** Gen  
**Length:** 1020  
**Characters:** Sherlock Holmes  
**For:** DW shortfics prompt 61: a soul lost among the mountains  
**Inspired by:** Samuel Barber's Nocturne from _Four Songs for Voice and Piano, op. 13_. No. 4. Text is by Frederic Prokosch. A version sung by Leontyne Price is [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20KboHrnqGY).  
**Notes:** Hiatus angst. POV Holmes.  
**Summary:** Holmes pines for Watson in a mountain cave.

A soul lost among the mountains. That is what the kind-hearted villagers call me. The unkind ones employ less wholesome monikers.

I thought that solitude and isolation was what I required, and for a while, perhaps it was. These mountains have done me some good, I’ll admit. But the nights have become, of late, too difficult; the nights are too much for this lost soul to endure.

I have already taken the decision: it is time to flee to a different kind of solitude, the solitude of a city, the solitude of a crowd, the solitude of the single grain of salt stubbornly refusing to melt in a briny ocean.

Yes, the nights are becoming too difficult here, in the mountains, alone. The nights are testing me to destruction. No, not to destruction, to madness. I miss Watson with an ache I can do longer support. I reach out for him like a child or a lunatic, and as I reach, I hear a haunting voice sing, like a lullaby,

_Close my darling both your eyes,_

_Let your arms lie still at last. _

I imagine the sweet words have ridden on a night wind from a bedroom window in the great city of London, through the smoggy particular, to the clear, sharp sky above this forlorn and forgotten cave in a jagged line of mountain hermitages.

I drop my arms to my sides and close my eyes and listen to the voice on the wind.

_Calm the lake of falsehood lies_

_And the wind of lust has passed_

It is, indeed, a lake of falsehoods that I have constructed. I was not honest about my plans with Watson. I was not honest with him about the dangers, not the dangers of Moriarty toward my person, but the dangers of me to Watson himself. I should have told him the truth: I will hurt you, Watson. I will hurt you dearly and for a long time, perhaps for the whole of both our lives. Is that a risk you are willing to take? He wouldn’t have believed me, but perhaps one day he will.

One day.

I remember the words of the song, and admit, yes, the wind of lust has passed. It was dampened to a large extent by Watson’s marriage, but the strains of this new, nameless life of mine and this journeying have mortified me, extinguishing the last remaining trace of fire. Any thoughts of the baths or night chases through the metropolis or any other formerly stimulating scenario now only provok sorrowed fatigue, heavy, damask curtain of tiredness along with immediate dismissal from my mind.

And yet.

The voice sings on.

_Waves across these hopeless sands_

_Fill my heart and end my day,_

_Underneath your moving hands_

_All my aching flows away._

Underneath Watson’s moving hands, all my aching would flow away; of that. I am certain. I imagine his hands stroking my hair and my neck. I imagine him petting me, and I purring like a contented feline. I imagine him, with a brush of his hand, his warm, calloused, careful hand, forgiving me for all the lies and deceptions and manipulations and choices which failed to respect him as a man or our friendship as the trove that it was.

The wind howls its aria outside my cave, but I do not move. I prefer my reverie to anything else at the moment.

I do, however, open my eyes.

I watch how the voice carries on and seems to whip into a whirling spiral in the cold night air above my head.

_Even the human pyramids_

_Blaze with such a longing now: _

Am I a human pyramid? A carefully constructed monument? Perhaps. A fancy tomb? A walking, crumbling gravestone. Yes. But, on reflection, I consider that a monument usually does not move. I do blaze with longing, and I have decided that the stillness of the pyramid’s character is beyond me. If I move swift enough, perhaps I can snuff out even so bright a blaze.

A part of me knows this is delusion, but another part of me indulges such delusions. That is my folly.

_Close, my love, your trembling lids,_

_Let the midnight heal your brow._

That is Watson. It is not Watson’s voice, but it is Watson’s sentiment. I close my eyes. I let the night smooth the cracks and crevices of my forehead. I feel my eyes since into their sockets and the brows follow suit.

I relax into the night. And I pray.

O Watson, may this lullaby travel back to you. May you close your trembling lids and have your brow healed by midnight or whatever hour of night it is there. Dusk, I suppose. O may there be solace somewhere, somehow, in your life. And good things, too. Moments of happiness. Moments of peace. Nights when you sleep and do not remember, nights when you sleep and do not dream.

I hear the beautiful voice.

_Northward flames Orion’s horn_

_Westward th’ Egyptian light._

_None to watch us, none to warn_

_But the blind eternal night. _

I think of the stars. I think of the moon. I even get to my feet, rising on spindly legs, and drawing the coarse blanket around me, hobble slowly to the mouth of the cave and cast my gaze to the night’s sky.

I have hurt him terribly, I pray. You must bless him as much as I have hurt him. Bring him comfort, bring him ease. If he is looking up at you as I am looking up at you, bless him.

Yes, in the morning, I will pack my things and head down to the village and onto the town and onto the city and onto a larger city. It is time. I do not want to converse with the wind any longer. I do not want to hear any lullaby. I will commit myself once more to the work of untangling the gossamer threads of Moriarty’s web.

Everything has a season, and this season is over.

By morning’s light, I will be ‘a soul lost among the mountains’ no more.


	14. A sorrow shared is a sorrow multiplied. [Honegger. Nocturne.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Title:** A sorrow shared is a sorrow multiplied.  
**Rating:** Gen  
**Pairing:** Holmes/Watson  
**Length:** 1060  
**Prompt:** DW shortfics 083. A sorrow shared is a sorrow multiplied.  
**Inspired by:** Honegger's [Nocturne for orchestra 1936](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suNPIlwOPAo)  
**Summary:** After failing to solve a case, Holmes suggests a night at the ballet.

A sorrow shared is a sorrow multiplied, or so I used to believe, so I kept my disappointment, which curdled more every hour that passed, to myself and suggested to Watson that he and I take in a ballet.

He readily agreed, why I didn’t ask. He was not, as far as I knew, an avid fan of dance performances. Nor of the music attached to them. His decision might have been influenced by my mood. I was careful not to be especially taciturn or insulting or anything outwardly negative, but Watson, though a man of action, was as sensitive as a weathervane when it came to reading the interior atmosphere of 221B Baker Street.

Regardless, he showed unusual, and genuine, enthusiasm at my invitation.

I dressed slowly and with unusual care. I arranged for a table at Simpson’s for afterwards.

We took a cab, of course. Our seats were good. 

We settled in. The hall went dark.

I cannot say, now, with any certainty what transpired for the next hours. As soon as the lights dimmed and the orchestra began, my thoughts drifted far away from the venue.

I became a character in a fable, one of those who wander into the woods, one of those who do not listen to wise voices, one of those who become lost.

Much too fanciful. What’s it all about?

It’s very simple, really.

I had not solved a case.

Nothing more, nothing less.

I had not solved a case.

I had investigated the crime. I had interviewed the suspects. I had collected or reviewed all the evidence there was.

I had all the clues and circumstances in my head, but I could not make them work together into a pattern or a solution.

Thrice, Watson and I had made a physical examination of the scene. More had been recovered with each visit, but nothing that would resolve the matter definitively.

I sighed. 

I closed my eyes as I often did at concerts and steepled my fingers together just below my chin. No one who spared a glance in my direction would see anything unusual. I was a patron enraptured by the music. Watson has even gone so far as to describe this pose in one of his narratives.

But my thoughts were not of the music, they were of my own iniquities. They were creatures hiding in the shadows of the haunted woods. There were malevolent beings made of poison-tinged gossamer threads. I walked into them like the carless wanderer. They brushed my face and stung me like eldritch nettles.

They were, I knew, my own doubts, my own frustrations, my unsatisfied yearnings.

They peeked at me from the underbrush. They stared at me from low-hanging boughs. They mocked me with unseen laughter.

I tried to bring my thoughts back to the path through the woods.

The clues.

I arranged them. I rearranged them. I saw no order, no comprehensible picture. I slammed my fist into them, shattering each composition.

Days had passed. Weeks had passed.

I had tired. I had rested. I had returned to the chase. I had tired once more.

The police had given up.

I had played the violin at all hours. I had smoked an unholy amount of tobacco. I had even permitted a brief relapse into the use of stronger chemistry.

All without result.

I was haunted by my own limitations, by my own weaknesses, by defeat.

I was no longer following the path, I was simply putting one foot in the front of the other, waiting for the menace of the forest to spring and devour me. 

And then I heard a noise, a noise which was not music.

Snoring.

I opened my eyes and turned my head to see Watson dozing in his seat.

I chuckled softly and, just like that, the spell was broken.

I do not mean to say I solved the case.

I did not. I have not.

But in that moment, its hold on me vanished.

I watched the dancers. I listened to the music of the orchestra and of my sleeping companion.

“You enjoyed it?” I asked later when Watson and I had a handsome supper between us.

“Oh, yes, fabulous.”

I smirked. “Watson, if you heard anything more than the first and last notes, I will be amazed.”

He blushed handsomely and tilted his head back and forth, weighing his words before he spoke.

“I know the case has been weighing on you, Holmes, and I know there’s not much I can do to help. Nevertheless, I have been worried. You’ve been so dogged by it, and you’ve been trying so hard not to be prickly. I thought you might snap from the strain of it, being pulled in two directions. I know how much you like this kind of thing, tonight, and so I thought it would finally put your mind at rest, and then, well, I could get some rest. When you’re upset, I’m upset, my dear man. I haven’t slept well for weeks!” He grinned a sheepish, schoolboy grin that shouldn’t have charmed but absolutely did. “To be honest, I was looking forward to a nice nap. And I can tell you’re doing better. Just by the way you look at me.”

I smiled and refilled his glass.

* * *

We walked back to Baker Street, arm in arm.

“Please archive it as an unsolved case, Watson.”

“I will. But, you know, Holmes, it mightn’t always be so. There may be something out there. A letter or a bit of story, you know, something someone saw or, oh, I don’t know, something else that we will come across which will lead to the truth. The first crumb in the trail that leads out of the woods may be waiting for us. For you. Somewhere.”

“Or it may not,” I said resignedly. “But that doesn’t mean I shall hang up my pipe or my magnifying glass just yet.” I squeezed his arm.

“Oh, no, Holmes, no!” he admonished. “But, uh, Holmes?”

“Mm?”

“Now that you’re in good spirits…”

“Yes?”

“And I’ve had a restoring kip…”

“Yes, I can think of several ways to end the evening.”

“Let’s do them all!”

We laughed and hurried home.

And that is the night I learned that a sorrow shared isn’t always multiplied. Sometimes, it’s halved. And sometimes, it’s reduced to naught.


	15. Entering the room quietly. [Chopin. No. 20. C sharp minor HEAVY METAL]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Title:** Entering the room quietly  
**Pairing:** Holmes/Watson  
**Rating:** Gen  
**Length:** 1100  
**For:** DW shortfics prompt .73: entering the room quietly  
**Inspired by:** [this HEAVY METAL version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXCKKTPUZVs&list=RDQXCKKTPUZVs&index=1) of Chopin's Nocturne no. 20 in C sharp minor  
**Summary:** Watson waxes poetic about Holmes entering and exiting the room.

Entering the room quietly, silently, even, was a habit of Holmes’s or so I believed in the early days of our sharing quarters in Baker Street.

I was to learn as the days went by that my fellow lodger was keenly observant of my change of moods and habits. He was also, I learned, aware of the sequelae of battle which followed me into peacetime. I had told him upon our first meeting, and he was soon to see and hear for himself, that I did not sleep well at night. Fatigue as well as convalescence often prompted me to doze during the day in the sitting room armchair, the most comfortable one, which I selfishly appropriated for my exclusive use.

_As an aside, Holmes claimed that the other armchair was a superior throne to mine for the purposes of smoking, and though I doubted the assertion the first time it was made, the following decades, and the legion of tobacco that went up in smoke at Holmes’s hands while seated there, have since removed any misgivings as to the veracity of such a pronouncement._

Thus, I was often found napping in the armchair. I also, on occasion, slept in it at night. I would, at times, migrate to the sofa, but more often than not, I was in the chair. Sometimes I would open my eyes to discover Holmes in the chair opposite mine or hunched over the desk or his workbench. He never woke me when he entered the room, and that was on purpose. He said, later, he did not wish to disturb me.

But circumstances evolved, as they will, with time and familiarity.

I remember, for instance, a time when Holmes employed such stealth and cat-like on an evening when I was feeling the strain of my wounds, visible and invisible, deeply. Mrs. Hudson had prepared a tea from a blend of herbs which had come recommended to her as well as bestowed upon her via her landladies’ circle, and it was a testament to my condition that I had agreed to try it. It was to be a sleeping draught, but as I stood and lifted the steaming cup to my lips, I realised, suddenly and unexpectedly, that Holmes had manifested himself behind me, like a strange bird.

I was so startled that I dropped the whole scalding, redolent concoction down the front of myself. Apologies, dismissive protests, mopping handkerchiefs, and embarrassment were served all around, and it was a very long time, indeed, before Holmes would not enter the room without a discreet cough or some other quiet heralding of his arrival.

Thankfully, my nerves eventually settled, and the evolution for Holmes and I continued, both of our friendship and our comportment around one another.

It was later, for example, that I was to amend my initial conclusion. Sometimes Holmes entering a room was the very opposite of quiet, the very anathema of discreet.

He did not like to disturb me when I was sleeping or when I was unawares, but he did, I discovered, enjoying make an entrance, and was more than ready to do so when I was his willing audience. Gestures, pronouncements, exclamations, it was all theatrical in the extreme. Sometimes, it was in front of clients to make a point or an impression; other times, I was the only other occupant of the room, and it was just an expression of his humour and personality.

He strode. He skipped. He leapt. He hit his mark.

But so far what I have mentioned occurred in Baker Street, when we were in our own rooms, in our own territory, so to speak.

The time I remember most vividly of Holmes entering a room was not a room at all, but rather a warehouse after I had been captured and was being held hostage by a band of unsavoury ruffians who were displeased that their leader had been identified by Holmes and held accountable for his crimes.

I was blindfolded. I was gagged. I was bound.

But I kept listening, straining my auditory faculties to their limit for the slightest twig of a sound that would indicate that Holmes had arrived to rescue me.

I heard nothing. I despaired. I struggled and received a nasty blow for my efforts from my captors.

I would love to report that my keen hearing or some other otherworldly sense alerted me to Holmes’s presence, but, no, he moved like a phantom shadow, and I learned of his presence at the same moment that my captors did, that is, when he decided to make his entrance, with his entrance line, delivered in an ominous baritone.

“You shouldn’t have done that. That was most unwise.”

I am aggrieved to report that I remained blindfold and immobilised for the first part of the battle when Holmes laid three of them low with his single stick.

I heard it, though. I heard the oaths and the grunts and the exertions and the crashing and crushing of bodies.

Holmes sounded like an avenging angel, like _my_ avenging angel.

My heart leapt, my soul cried out, and I fought against my ties in order to aid him in his attack.

I was utterly useless, the veritable damsel in distress tied to the railroad tracks.

Eventually, Lestrade and his team arrived, and Holmes could turn his attention to freeing me.

I was about to say something horribly indiscreet, but he put his finger to my lips and whispered,

“Later.”

Then he and I joined the forces of law and order in gathering the crew up.

Holmes was magnificent, absolutely magnificent.

When we finally returned to Baker Street, we helped to patch each other up, and each had a thorough wash.

I found Holmes in the sitting room with a glass of whiskey in his hand. He held the glass out to me.

“In case you need a restorative after your ordeal.”

“Thank you.” I took it and drank. “You were…” I shook my head helplessly, unable to find the descriptor.

“Thank you,” he said. “Sometimes, discretion is called for, and sometimes, well, it is best to begin as you mean to go on, no?”

I chuckled. “You seem to manage both very well.”

“I was beside myself with worry for you, Watson. I could think of nothing but your safe recovery.”

“Which you managed nicely.”

I extended a hand. He caught it and held it for a moment, then brought it to his lips.

We held each other’s gaze as we held each other’s hand, and then we exited the room quietly, together.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
